Friday, December 09, 2016

Blogosphere! I haven't played a ton of KOW this year, and I haven't written about all my games, but I did do a writeup for the Crossroads GT back in September, which you can check out here on Dakka. And as a bonus here's another tournament recap, from last weekend!

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After a night of clubbing last Friday (Dec 2), I got two
hours of sleep and then was whisked away by a couple clubmates to Manchester,
CT for a three round single dayer at The Portal – which is a fantastic game
store with sooooo much gaming room it’s scary.

I took my smelly green Ratkin, cooked down from the
latest 2500 to a very grindy 2000:

NURGLEKIN 2000

War Chief – the boomstick

Blight Lord – bane chant, wings of honeymaze

Blight Lord – bane chant

Blight Lord – bane chant

Blight Horde – fire oil

Blight Horde

Blight Horde

Blight Horde

Brute Regiment

Brute Regiment

Death Engine – vile sorcery

Death Engine – vile sorcery

I had serious misgivings about dropping my Warlocks – I’m
usually rocking along at 10-15 lightning shots – but I really love my four
Rackham apostates and wanted to use them all again. The flying character was
also a very new concept to me, intended to address all the things flying punchy
heroes do, at a hefty price tag (like 160 pts!)

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ROUND 1: INVADE

RATKIN

Demonspawn – wings

War Chief on Fleabag – two-handed weapon, blade of the
beast slayer

Warlock – bane chant, inspiring talisman

Shock Troop Horde – brew of haste

Blight Horde – brew of strength

Brute Horde – brew of courage

Tunnel Slave Horde

Tunnel Slave Regiment

Vermintide Regiment

Vermintide Regiment

Death Engine – vile sorcery

Death Engine – vile sorcery

I liberally applied Monster Rehab to myself and then
racked up for a civil war against a beautiful army and deliciously atypical
list – i.e. another rat army with zero weapon teams!

While my rats tend to do pretty poorly at Invade (due to
castling and relying on shooting), grabbing first turn and knowing this list
wanted to grind meant I could shove forward early:

And grind we did, especially in the center:

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His heavy flank was initially a concern, with Vermintide > Brutes > Demonspawn stacked to give each other cover from my Death Engines, but once combat happened things started to slide sideways for him:

Those Brutes held up the Demonspawn for waaaaaay longer than they should have, giving the Death Engines time to hold and flank the Brutes, then double (hindered) charge the Demonspawn into the ground. Props lil' Brute regiment!

End game saw our armies reduced to almost identical units:

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2 Death Engines, 1 Blight horde and 1 War Chief for both
of us … however all of my Blight Lords were alive and on his side, tipping our
Draw to my favor by a point.

DRAW (11-9)

Great match and my first time playing against Ratkin.
Victory burritos followed.

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ROUND 2: PILLAGE (7)

DWARFS

Stone Priest – bane chant, inspiring talisman

Stone Priest – bane chant

Warsmith

Army Standard Bearer

Army Standard Bearer

Berserker Brock Rider Regiment – brew of sharpness

Earth Elemental Horde – brew of strength

Ironclad Horde – amulet of thorns

Ironclad Horde – brew of courage

Berserker Regiment – blessing of the gods

Ironwatch Crossbows

Ironwatch Crossbows

Ironbelcher Organ Gun

Ironbelcher Organ Gun

Ironbelcher Organ Gun

Triple Organs gave me a bit of pause, but after we both
stuck markers in table corners I figured one of them would sit back there and
be out of the game, reducing the pressure on me a bit, though Blight don’t care
as much. Which is indeed what happened.

The game rolled out in three parts: left Ironclad + ASB
backed up by crossbows vs Blight waves + a Lord cheering them on; aggro badgers
down the middle with shooting support vs Blight waves + a Lord (+ flying lord);
right Ironclad, ‘Serkers, Elementals + Priest tanking in vs Blight, double
Engines + El Jefe. Oh, Brutes are hiding in the left corner (holding a point
from which they never strayed) and the right corner (backing cautiously away
from incoming Berserkers).

The middle quickly resolved itself as aggro badgers were
baited in and flanked to death (the flanking Blight are back a bit, those
‘hills’ sucked) -

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- and flying lord slammed into an Organ Gun and slowly made his way through both guns and the Warsmith, though it took him the entire game to do it (nothing broke on the first charge).

On the right, Engine fire focused the Elementals hard as they advanced -

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- eventually killing them in short order, leaving the Blight to (hindered) charge into the Ironclad and begin the grind:

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The double Engines turned their attention to the Berserkers, lathering them up with wounds, and right after this photo the Brute zipped up to block the angry stunties from flanking in ... but as it turned out they didn't have to die, as the Berserkers popped after a second volley from the Engines. The Brutes would go on to flank the Ironclad and claim the rightmost pillage marker. Like bosses.

The left flank saw a pattern of me bringing up a Blight horde, it getting mildly shot up my fire from the left + center, me charging the Ironclad for a little damage, then getting wrecked in return. Round one:

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Round two:

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I luckily held that round, then was popped in Turn 7. However that extra turn meant I could get an Engine within 18" of those badly bruised Ironclad, which was able to blow them off the table. In the end I claimed 6 markers to his 1, plus a lot of VPs for a heavy win.

NURGLE VICTORY (19-1)

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ROUND THREE: DOMINATE

SALAMANDERS

Clan Lord on Fire Drake with Wings – ensorcelled armor

Clan Lord on Fire Drake with Wings – fire oil

Clan Lord on Fire Drake with Wings

Ancients on Rhinosaurs Horde – potion of the caterpillar

Salamander Prime Horde – two-handed weapons, brew of
sharpness

Salamander Prime Horde – amulet of thorns

Lekelidon

Lekelidon

Lekelidon

Well fakk me sideways: top table on like no sleep and I’m
up against triple flying bastards with breath weapons like whoa and me with not
a lot of shooting. I told him I wasn’t really sure how I was supposed to do
much to him, he told me not to be like that already!

He got first turn and shoved up (two Drakes are flanking
down the left). I responded by canting my battleline, gentle advancing and
generally squirting the musk of indecision / fear:

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Death Engines rock the left horde (no shields). Other Brute unit is off shot to the right, pretending it isn't an easy kill for that green Drake (who is the 6+ DEF one).

Turn 2, both flanking Drakes combo charge the left Brutes and tough Drake on the right gets into breath range of the leading Blight, who indeed suffer:

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Stunningly the left Brutes held the double
charge!! With no Inspiring to help them out! I don’t respond much, besides
getting Blight hordes back into charge range of Salamander hordes – the
Rhinosaurs have range to the center but don’t want to charge into that mess
alone. Engines again pummel the two-handed Sallies. The champion Brutes
counter-charge the fire oil Drake, cuddling it a bit.

Turn 3, the Salamanders without wings continue to sit
tight (they don’t back up this turn tho, wanting to retain pressure on the
Dominate objective). Those with wings counter-charge the Brutes, hop into the
ratty backfield, and flank hard while breathing all over rightmost Blight, who
hold but are getting heavy with damage now:

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The Brute die :’( Oh, the Lekelidon have been targeting
the central Blight when able, but having little effect thanks to Stealthy and
pretty horrible dice.

Ratkin respond with violence. The central Blight charge
into the two-handed Salamanders and shatter them, as other Blight prepare to
trap the Rhinosaurs if they come in. The other two Blight mobilize to either
charge or wave into the second Salamander horde (or get flanked/flamed by the
tough Drake but whatev). However none of this is going to matter if those
Drakes in my backfield can still 20” charge whatever they want, probably in the
flank or rear:

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A Blight Lord charges into the middle Drake, cracking a
wound on it and grounding it (thank you CoC comp!), shortly after both Engines
+ the boomstick unload into the fire oil Drake, wavering it. Whew.

Turn 4 sees Rhinosaurs finally charge the bashed up
central Blight, the disordered Drake flank an Engine, the tough Drake flit
backwards – pausing to breath on and kill the rightmost Blight threatening the
surviving Primes – and the Lekelidon continue to fluff (they may have helped
the Drake drop those Blight).

Surviving Brutes pounce on the Primes to hold them in
place and bop them around a bit, as flying Blight Lord swoops in and
decapitates a Lekelidon. In the backfield, the flanked Engine charges forward
into the fire oil Drake (wavering it), and the other Engine + Chief shoot the
other Drake in the face (also wavering it).

Turn 5, those bashed up central Blight are ended, likely
by another Drake breath + Lekelidon overkill. The Brutes are also beat down by
the Primes. In the ratkin half, those Drakes are finally killed by Engines in
combat, with the Chief getting his hands dirty too (to the tune of 4 wounds out
of 5 attaks!) Another Lekelidon is killed by that Blight Lord.

Turn 6, he consolidates his position around the central
point – unfortunately his Prime horde is so long it does not fit entirely
within 12”. The flying Lord is vaporized by Drake breath. In the rat turn,
Blights make contact with the last Lekelidon (it vanishes) and the Primes (they
might actually have wavered). Currently my Engines + Chief are not within 12”
of the center, though they’re close.

Turn 7 happens! He doesn’t have much to do, but hops his
Drake behind the rampaging Blight. More importantly for me I am able to shove
Engines up into scoring range, further cementing a win with a hefty VP lead.

NURGLE VICTORY (18-2)

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So I somehow managed to go 2-0-1 and come away with $40 for third place O_O (Although after recalculations happened I actually came in fourth, but was allowed to keep the store cred, which had been spent already :P)

The lads talked about getting BBQ but I was a corpse at this point and had them pack me back into the car for the ride home. Great day of gaming all the same, happy to have powered through XD​